On Monday POGO signed onto a letter with over 20 other organizations calling on the House to pass this landmark transparency bill. Introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and cosponsored by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and 13 others, the DATA Act would apply the lessons learned from the Recovery Act about transparent reporting of spending across the entire federal government. The Recovery Act requires recipients of Recovery funds to regularly report on how they are using that money. All the data is posted on Recovery.gov so the public can track where all the funds are going at one central website.

How does the DATA Act use Recovery.gov as a model for fostering transparency and accountability in government spending, and why does it matter?

By BRYAN RAHIJA

Big news this morning from 1100 G St.: veteran Washington Post reporter David Hilzenrath will be joining team POGO, assuming the role of editor-in-chief.

Hilzenrath is an award-winning journalist who's covered everything from fraud, financial regulators, and government reform of Wall St. and health care to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Needless to say, we're excited to have Hilzenrath aboard the good ship POGO. In a statement released this morning, POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian said that he's an ideal fit.

“David’s top-notch investigative skills, passion for holding government accountable, and deep knowledge of how this city operates will help take us to the next level,” Brian said. “We’re thrilled he’s coming to POGO.”

For his part, Hilzenrath said, “I’m honored to be joining an investigative organization with such a distinguished tradition of public service and with such a talented and dedicated team. At a time when conventional news outlets are contending with profound economic challenges, the Project On Government Oversight’s commitment to watchdog reporting is more important than ever.”

Where there's smoke, there's fire. POGO's Morning Smoke is a collection of the freshest investigations, scoops, and opinions related to the world of government oversight. Have a story you'd like to see included? Contact POGO's blog editor

By MICHAEL SMALLBERG

The Treasury Department has failed to fully implement two thirds of the recommendations made by the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) during the course of the Wall Street bailout, according to a new SIGTARP report released this morning.

When Congress approved the bailout in 2008, it also created the SIGTARP to protect against the abuse of taxpayer funds. Since then, the SIGTARP has issued nearly 100 recommendations aimed at preventing waste, fraud, and abuse across a wide range of bailout programs. But like all IGs, the SIGTARP cannot compel an agency to take action based on its findings.

Treasury has put many of the SIGTARP’s recommendations in place, which “resulted in important protections for taxpayers” according to the SIGTARP’s report. But in other cases, for reasons that are not always clear, Treasury has decided not to adopt the recommendations, raising concerns about the ongoing potential for abuse.

For instance, the SIGTARP made several recommendations concerning a bailout program in which the government partnered with private firms to invest in the troubled assets that remained on the balance sheets of many banks, preventing them from raising capital and increasing lending. (POGO and others had raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest arising from the private interests of the fund managers selected by the government.)

Apr 24, 2012

One of POGO's areas of concern is the recovery of "improper payments." Many agencies have collected only a small percentage of the taxpayer money they have wrongly spent through overpayments, duplicate payments, payments for services not actually rendered, payments to the incorrect person or group, and payments to vendors that do not even exist. POGO looked into the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) improper payment record and found that FEMA has dished out millions of dollar to the wrong people since 2005, but has only recovered roughly one third of it.

POGO submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking information about payments owed to and actually collected by FEMA as restitutions “by individuals or groups found guilty of fraud relating to private-sector and government efforts to help victims of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma from 2005 to 2010.” FEMA disclosed that only 34 percent of payments deemed improper by courts have been recovered between fiscal years (FY) 2005 and 2010:

Fiscal Year (FY)

Billed

Payments

Difference

FY 2005

-

-

-

FY 2006

$852,465.94

$322,312.68

$530,153.26

FY 2007

$2,610,641.04

$206,450.11

$2,404,190.93

FY 2008

$3,411,328.52

$605,670.13

$2,805,658.39

FY 2009

$6,534,968.51

$3,438,274.74

$3,096,693.77

FY 2010

$3,080,283.84

$969,365.31

$2,110,918.53

Total

$16,489,687.85

$5,542,072.97

$10,947,614.8

Just after Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, FEMA provided more than $7 billion in individual assistance payments to victims. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General (IG) report speculated that $643 million of the $7 billion was improperly spent (FEMA is within the DHS). Based on FEMA’s numbers, of the estimated $643 million in improper spending, $16.5 million had been subject to a finding of fraud, with only $5.5 million collected.

To address this issue, United States Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales established the Hurricane Katrina Fraud Task Force. The Task Force published a 2007 report describing its mission of “deterring, detecting, and prosecuting unscrupulous individuals who try to take advantage of the Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma disasters.” Gonzales said the overall goal was to “stop people who seek to illegally take for themselves the money that is intended for the victims of the hurricanes” and give back the taxpayers’ money. As FEMA’s 34 percent return rate suggests, however, more work needs to be done recovering improper expenditures.

By SUZANNE DERSHOWITZ

On April 9, federal agencies across the government released updates of their Open Government Plans, a key component of President Obama's Open Government Initiative. With delegates from 53 countries converging last week in Brazil for the first annual meeting of the global Open Government Partnership (OGP), now is a good time to take stock of the renewed commitments in the updated plans and evaluate the government's progress on the road to implementation. Overall, the results have been mixed.

When the initial Open Government plans were released over two years ago in response to the White House Open Government Directive (OGD), OpenTheGovernment.org and its partners (including POGO) conducted a comprehensive review and audit with agency rankings. POGO evaluated the Open Government Plans of the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of Energy (DOE), Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). We will be particularly interested in taking a closer look at these agencies’ updated plans.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. POGO's Morning Smoke is a collection of the freshest investigations, scoops, and opinions related to the world of government oversight. Have a story you'd like to see included? Contact POGO's blog editor

Apr 23, 2012

By ANDRE FRANCISCO

On Sunday, POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian was on C-SPAN's Washington Journal to talk about the costs and complexities of government oversight, especially in light of the recent conference scandal at the General Services Administration (GSA). She took some interesting questions from callers about President Obama, Rep. Darrell Issa (D-CA), Inspectors General, and the problems holding up oversight in government. Check out the video!

By DANA LIEBELSON

POGO sent a letter today to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees recommending that an expensive and severely flawed variant of the Littoral Combat Ship program be eliminated. The letter comes on the heels of POGO's release of Navydocuments revealing serious cracking and corrosion problems with the ship--along with evidence of dangerous equipment failures.

As we’ve reported, The General Dynamics LCS has some problems with corrosion. But the Lockheed Martin version can hardly even make it out of the harbor. As we wrote in our letter, POGO has obtained a number of documents showing that Lockheed Martin’s USSFreedom has been “plagued by flawed designs and failed equipment since being commissioned, has at least 17 known cracks, and has repeatedly been beset by engine-related failures.”

By DANA LIEBELSON

Last week, congressional committees held hearings on the General Service Administration's (GSA) lavish spending at a conference in Las Vegas. As lawmakers examined the scandal--which included allegations that agency officials spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on a loft suite party and a clown--one question kept repeating itself: how can we keep this abuse of federal spending from ever happening again?

Dozens of good government groups from across the ideological spectrum will send a letter to the House today supporting a critical transparency bill: the Digital Accountability and Transparency (DATA) Act. The bill (H.R. 2146) would revolutionize federal spending transparency and help prevent bureaucratic waste, fraud and abuse—like the GSA scandal. But in order to pass, the bill needs two thirds of the House to show up and vote for the Act.

Not only does the DATA Act have backing from transparency and accountability groups as diverse as the Cost of Government Center (an affiliate of Americans for Tax Reform), the Sunlight Foundation, and OMB Watch, but also businesses like Microsoft and the tech companies represented in the Data Transparency Coalition. It’s not hard to see why—this is a win-win bill for government, taxpayers, and private businesses.

The DATA Act, introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and cosponsored by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and 13 others, dramatically overhauls all federal spending by modeling the transparency and accountability in the Recovery Act. Like the Recovery Act, or stimulus, the DATA Act creates an independent commission responsible for monitoring federal spending and making this information public in a one-stop-shop portal (like Recovery.gov). This commission would include transparency rock stars like Inspectors General, deputy secretaries, and other senior officials led by a presidentially-appointed chairperson.

Where there's smoke, there's fire. POGO's Morning Smoke is a collection of the freshest investigations, scoops, and opinions related to the world of government oversight. Have a story you'd like to see included? Contact POGO's blog editor

Apr 20, 2012

By DANA LIEBELSON

The Navy has put out a call for a new fighter jet, which could potentially lead to finding a viable alternative to the most expensive jet of all time: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). As POGO has recommended in the past, replacing certain costly variants of the F-35 could save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. If the Navy successfully finds a new aircraft, it could save even more—even though for now, the agency is denying that it’s actively looking for a replacement to the JSF.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense and POGO's Spending Less, Spending Smarter report, the JSF program is costing taxpayers some $385 billion for development and production, and over the coming decades, it's going to require more than $1.1 trillion to maintain and operate. But the Pentagon continues to claim that the aircrafts are worth the price, because we can’t survive without them.

Does that sound like a good investment? We don’t think so. In ourSpending Less, Spending Smarter report we found that replacing the B and C models with the FA-18 E/F Super Hornets would save taxpayers around $43.64 billion.